Dappled Cities
Zounds
Rating: 3.5/5.0
Label: Dangerbird Records
It makes sense that Sydney’s Dappled Cities were once Dappled Cities Fly; the name seems almost a determined effort to be steadfastly opaque to the listener, or difficult for the very sake of it. This kind of grim determination to be a studied ‘art-pop’ act does pay off; true to form, Zounds is misspelled as a word, self-referentially titling a record of grandiose and askew pop music. Zounds is a soaring, dense pop record that seems to aspire to being the Australian answer to Peter, Bjorn and John’s 2006 rainmaker, Writer’s Block. But where Writer’s Block was an impossibly good collection of pop songs married with genetically superior Swedish pop sensibilities, Zounds tries its damnedest to be hooky and interesting, resulting in a record that’s a bit frontloaded, with it’s plateau of quality falling mid-album.
“Hold Your Back” is satisfactory as an introduction, its tempo not staying at any one speed long enough. While it lacks a discernible hook, it sets the mood nicely for the synth-dazzled stomp of “Answer is Zero.” Amid a mid-tempo rhythm played on treated drums, big keyboard chords chime away, sounding tones you swear you’ve heard from ’80s records. It’s with these synths (especially those that punctuate the song’s chorus) that an obvious influence on Dappled Cities first appears on Zounds; these weirdly orchestral electronics and elsewhere (“Slow for Me, My Island,” “The Price”), indulgent layers of swooning strings evoke the mild-mannered countenance of Jeff Lynne, grinding away at 4/4 in front of a live Electric Light Orchestra that may or may not have actually been playing their cellos. Sounding even more like ELO, first single “The Price” kills it, saccharine strings and Tim Derricourt’s quick rise to falsetto during the chorus recalling to mind sweet talkin’ women of years gone by; the rest of the songs be damned- they stack up like well-polished wooden frames next to “The Price’s” Starry Night.
“Wooden Ships” explores Unforgettable Fire territory; the places where prior songs were stuffed to the gills with synths and strings now let out and allowing for empty space where guitar reverberation can paint colors. “Slow for Me, My Island,” gallops along, a composed, melancholic song with insistent piano playing like a rhythm instrument and snaky ripples of electronics working their way through. The listener goodwill established by this impressive run of four gorgeous-sounding pop songs is unfortunately squandered by a vocal pipe bomb waiting in the opening seconds of the following track, “The Night is Young at Heart.” “Would you be open/ To a night of total chaos,” screams Derricourt.
Except for his understated performance in “Answer is Zero,” Derricourt chews scenery as a singer, delivering his lines as though floating on clouds, sliding handily from one note to the next, no matter how far apart they may be. To put it in layman’s terms, Derricourt much of the time sounds like my father attempting a Morrissey impression. Apply this sensibility to that “chaos” line and you have a foppish, garish blemish on Zounds’ sheen- one that it never really recovers from. As unsettlingly pretty as “Don’t Stop There” might be, or as strangely interesting as the closing ersatz country of “Stepshadows” sounds (the band whips out acoustic guitars, Ennio Morricone noodles and backing vocals out of Frankie Laine’s “Rawhide”), the heady Last Night of the Earth decadence the rest of the record strives for can’t help but be connoted with unfortunate vocal and lyrical straining. Life’s too short to worry about Dappled Cities’ album cuts in earnest, though, especially when songs like “The Price” are waiting for you to download.
by Chris Middleman
